The Replaced

by Kimberly Derting

  He scowled at me. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

  It wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever been called. “If you say so.”

  “Not a compliment.”

  “So . . . why Thom?”

  He paused, sweeping his gaze toward Thom, who was at the SUV, impatiently watching the restroom door. I wondered if he was waiting for Natty the way Simon had been waiting for me. “I guess because I knew he would protect us. I might not like him, but I trust him.”

  “And does that feeling go both ways? Does he trust you?”

  Simon’s expression darkened, and it wasn’t hard to guess this was still a sore subject for him. “He does. But we have . . . a complicated history,” he admitted. “All you need to know is that we’re putting everything in the past. At least for now. Look, that wasn’t what I came here to talk about. Can we have a minute? Alone?”

  We were already alone, but I lifted one shoulder. “Go ahead. Talk.”

  He reached for my arm, drawing me farther away from the restroom door. My stomach sank because I was pretty sure I knew what this was about, and I suddenly wished Natty would hurry the hell up so we could get on the road again. At least inside the SUV, Simon couldn’t pull me aside.

  When we stopped, I ran my hands along my arms, even though I wasn’t the slightest bit cold.

  “I should’ve told you. About the DNA stuff,” he said when there was no chance anyone would overhear. “It’s just . . . it’s a hard thing to explain.”

  “Yet somehow you managed.” I didn’t wait for a response. “How can you even live with it? How do you not freak out every single second of every single day? Don’t you feel . . . like . . . like a monster?”

  “Kyra. Try to understand. You’re still the same as you were before. I mean, yes, we all age slower and need less sleep, but isn’t that what most people dream of?” he said. “Think about it, how is what they’ve done to us any different from all the medical techniques and cosmetic procedures people go through to look younger and live longer? People take drugs, get plastic surgery, and inject Botox in their faces to slow the aging process. Pharmaceutical companies do research on everything under the sun to improve health and cure illnesses, and even just so consumers can look better.” His eyes ticked skyward. “So . . . they’ve perfected it before we have, so what?” His smile was uncertain as he chewed his bottom lip. “It doesn’t change who you are.”

  I thought of the way Tyler had told me I was the same girl I’d always been right after I told him I hadn’t aged while I’d been experimented on.

  Simon took a step forward, and this time, instead of touching my hair, his fingertips skimmed mine. It wasn’t accidental, the touch, and I told myself that the thunderbolt that ricocheted through my belly had more to do with my own pangs of self-doubt than that momentary brush of his skin against mine. “You’re perfect, Kyra.”

  Tyler had said that too, and I had to wonder if he’d still feel the same way now, knowing that those aliens had somehow changed the foundation of who I really was.

  I squeezed my fingers into a tight fist. “Don’t,” was all I managed to say back to him.

  “And I want to apologize . . . for what I had to do back there,” he said at last. And it was strange because I guess I knew he was talking about the Tacoma facility, even without him having said so. I hadn’t expected him to say he was sorry. It wasn’t like Simon to admit he was wrong, especially since I hadn’t asked for it. “It wasn’t easy”—he squared his shoulders—“leaving Willow behind like that, but I had to do it.”

  “Why?” I lowered my voice because even though Willow was all the way across the parking lot in the SUV, there was no way I wanted to risk her hearing us talk like this. “How could you just . . . abandon her like that?”

  Simon glanced to the vehicle too. He watched it for a long time, and then he blew out his breath. “It wasn’t about abandoning Willow.” He waited for me to return his gaze, and when I finally did, his jaw tensed. “It was about you. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  He may as well have punched me in the gut. There were only two explanations for his actions back there in that alley.

  One, those extra abilities of mine, the ones that the others didn’t have, made me worth saving.

  Or two, and this one was without question more frightening . . . Simon had feelings for me that there was no way I could return.

  Neither answer was acceptable.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Columbia Basin, Washington State

  IT NEVER REALLY BECAME CLEAR WHO THE leader was, Thom or Simon. Neither was totally in charge, but both of them were in a weird kind of way.

  They became co-leaders of sorts, deciding our fate in this almost eerie shorthand that involved nods and meaningful looks that made it seem as if they’d been doing this forever. The rest of us were still in the dark.

  More secrets.

  Staying clear of the major highways wasn’t as hard as we thought it would be; there were more than enough lesser-traveled side roads to keep us clear of any potential roadblocks.

  Thom wanted to stop at another hole-in-the-wall gas station to pick up a burner phone so we could let the Silent Creekers know we couldn’t come back, but Simon declared it was too risky to contact them or anyone else by any means, even burners. We couldn’t risk anyone’s safety, so, for now, we had no way of knowing if the Silent Creek camp had been compromised, or if the NSA was already on our trail.

  We were operating in the dark both figuratively and literally. At least one would end soon.

  Even before Thom pointed out, “Sunrise,” I’d felt it, and had to bite my tongue to keep from gasping against the sharp knife of pain.

  Within seconds, the stabbing sensation passed, but I realized it was just one more thing that made me different, set me apart from the others.

  From the way the deep black sky in the distance was barely transitioning to a murky shade of gray, we probably had less than an hour until the remaining night would no longer be blanketing us. We hadn’t seen many cars on the road, but daylight would bring out more drivers . . . and make us far too visible.

  It seemed impossible we’d only just left Silent Creek the day before, and here we were totally cut off from all the other Returned, completely on our own.

  On the run.

  But I was finally starting to feel better about our circumstances. To process it and file it away and cope with the realities of everything we’d been through.

  True, we’d been lured to the Tacoma facility by Agent Truman, only to discover Tyler hadn’t actually been there at all. And also true, we’d nearly lost Willow in the process.

  But the more important thing was we’d gotten her back.

  Simon tapped his finger on the map as he leaned over to show Willow. “It looks like there’s a town up ahead. Maybe we can find a place to stash the car and get a room where we can lay low for the day.”

  Jett caressed his forearm. “Won’t the six of us together draw attention? Especially if the police here have been notified about us?”

  “He has a point,” Thom said, looking decisively at Simon. “We need to split up when we get there. Meet again at sundown.”

  Simon had been right about the town being small. And Jett had been right about us sticking together—it wasn’t exactly the kind of place six kids could blend and go unnoticed.

  But at least it wasn’t Silent Creek–small, which was damn near invisible.

  This little town, just east of the Cascade Mountains, was bigger than Silent Creek, but just barely, and our hopes of finding a motel we could check into, someplace we could hide until nightfall, turned out to be wishful thinking.

  There wasn’t a hotel, motel, hostel, or inn for miles and miles, and we needed to get off the roads . . . fast.

  Our best hope was that we could make ourselves scarce for the next fifteen hours of daylight.

  “How are we planning to split up?” Jett asked.

  Simon an
d Thom did that weird looking-at-each-other thing, and then Thom came back with, “How about Team One and Team Two?”

  But Willow’s lips pressed into a tight line. “No offense, but that didn’t work out so well for me last time. How ’bout I take Kyra and Jett?”

  Okay, so that wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to spend my day either.

  At first I’d thought it was cool that Willow was no longer glaring, or even growling, at me. But what had started happening was almost worse, and it was getting stranger by the mile.

  Whatever life debt Willow thought she owed me after I’d shot myself in order to save her had morphed into her strange attempts at girl talk. And frankly, Willow sucked at girl talk.

  During this last stretch, she’d asked about my favorite music, and who was my first kiss, and whether I’d ever tried putting chocolate frosting on my pancakes. It was seriously weirding me out.

  I sent a Help me glance to Natty—a little silent message of my own—thinking I’d rather play third wheel to her and Thom than play another round of Let’s Be Best Friends with Willow.

  “Sorry,” Natty jumped in. “I already called dibs on Kyra.”

  “Fine. It’s settled, then,” Simon announced. “I’ll take Kyra and Natty. Willow, you can go with Thom and Jett.” He glanced around at everyone like he was the coach and we were his team. I half expected him to make us put our hands in for a cheer. “We all good?”

  Thom looked like he might argue, but it was Willow who looked downright dejected. I almost felt bad for her.

  Almost.

  On the other hand, spending an entire day with Simon, away from the others, sort of defeated my whole not-wanting-to-be-on-Team-Two plan, since he was one-half of the reason I didn’t want to be on that team. Willow might be weirding me out, but not knowing how Simon felt still made me uneasy.

  I ignored the frenzy in my stomach as we parked the SUV in a church parking lot. Ours didn’t stand out among the rest, so hopefully no one would give it a second glance. With any luck no one would notice our out-of-state plates or call the police, and when we came back, it would still be here.

  Just in case, we gathered our necessities.

  I cringed when I realized my jeans were still shredded, and disgustingly bloodied. “Someone will for sure notice if I walk around in these.”

  From out of nowhere, Simon produced a box cutter and tossed it to me. “You’ll have to turn them into shorts for now.” He counted out some cash and divided it out. “We’ll try to find a place to get you something else to wear.”

  There wasn’t time for modesty as I hid behind the SUV and stripped out of my jeans. I did my best to hack through the denim with the box cutter, but it wasn’t pretty. The legs weren’t even close to even, and there were still spots of blood visible above the hemline. But at least without the gaping hole, it was unlikely anyone would guess what the splatter was. When I came out again, I raised my hands. “So? Can I rock the cutoffs, or what?”

  Natty giggled while Simon passed out our fake IDs, and not for the first time I found myself staring at my face on Bridget Hollingsworth’s driver’s license. It was the same ID Simon had given me before, when I’d been on the run from Agent Truman and the No-Suchers.

  Thom signaled to me that he wanted a minute alone. I followed, wondering what this could possibly be about. “I almost forgot,” he told me when we were out of the way of the others. “I got you this . . . at the gas station we stopped at.”

  I stared down at his offering in surprise. Thom had always been nice enough to me, but this was different, and all of a sudden I saw him the way Natty must—handsome, sweet, thoughtful.

  I shook my head. “I can’t . . .” I tried to wave him off as I blinked furiously. “How . . . how did you even know?” My last words came out squeaky, like someone had pinched the end of a balloon and was letting the air out super slow.

  “Natty’s not your only friend at Silent Creek, you know? Besides, you’re a little obvious—always checking the time. This’ll make things easier for you.” He nudged his hand closer. “Here. Take it. I don’t think the place I got it from has a return policy, so if you don’t accept it, then I have to wear it.” He glanced meaningfully at the pinkness of it, letting me know which option was out of the question.

  I wasn’t used to being embarrassed, but his gesture took me totally off guard. Thom wasn’t my friend, and he wasn’t my leader either. I was just someone who’d landed on his doorstep in need of a place to stay. If it wasn’t for the fact that the present was calling to me, I would have held firm in my I-can’t-accept-it stance. But I seriously wanted it, so I held out my wrist, trying not to be all wigged out by the fact that my obsession had been so obvious.

  Thom wrapped the rubbery pink band around my wrist and secured the clasp. It wasn’t fancy or anything, but the time had already been set.

  Dragging my eyes from the rhythmic advance of the second hand as it ticked around the face of the watch, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like an idiot. “It’s perfect,” I told him.

  “Do me a favor, will ya?” he asked. “Keep an eye on Natty today. Don’t let anything happen to her.”

  I frowned, because of course I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, not on purpose anyway. “Yeah. Sure.”

  The scrunched muscles between his brows softened, just a tad. “Thanks. It’s just . . .” He shrugged. “Well, you know . . . thanks,” he finished, running his hand through his black hair. Then he put his watch beside mine so I could see that the two were in sync. “Seven o’clock,” he told me, and something as seemingly insignificant as having a plan to meet—a set time—made me feel . . . right. As if I had a purpose.

  And then Thom, Willow, and Jett wandered away from us, leaving me alone with Simon and Natty. I grinned at my new team, feeling a sense of determination to make the best of our forced time together. “Now that those losers are gone, what should we do?”

  Bowling.

  That’s how we spent the better part of our afternoon, in a noisy bowling alley where we watched the Thursday afternoon leagues fill up the lanes—a lot of old men, and some women too, who wore matching shirts and had fancy, shiny, and even colored bowling balls that they polished before they threw them and then again when they plucked them off the automatic return. They razzed each other about gutter balls, and even more when someone got a strike or a spare—Lucky shot! someone would yell almost every time—and in general they gave the impression that they’d known one another for a very, very long time.

  The whole thing made me homesick for Cat and all the girls from my softball team who I’d spent hours and hours on the field with. I was even a little nostalgic for Austin, since he and I had grown up together.

  But most of all, I missed Tyler.

  I picked at the deep-fried cheese sticks and onion rings we’d ordered while we waited for a lane to open up for us. Unlike the doughnuts Jett had gotten for me, this food tasted the way almost everything had since I’d returned: bland. But it gave me something to do with my hands and it made us look like normal teens, which was our primary goal. To blend.

  There hadn’t been any real stores in town, not like a Target or a Walmart, a superstore that had racks and racks of clothes I could choose from. There wasn’t even a grocery store that carried clothing, like a Fred Meyer. I hadn’t planned on being choosy; I just wanted something not of the cutoff variety, preferably without chunks of my own flesh stuck to it.

  But obviously, in a town without a flashing stoplight, that had been too much to ask for.

  We’d walked through the miniature-sized “downtown” area, which consisted of a gas station, some old-fashioned-looking buildings that housed a bakery–slash–coffee shop–slash–hardware store, a butcher shop, and a liquor store that was, not surprisingly, the biggest shop of them all.

  It was in this section of town that we also came across a small consignment shop.

  The place was jam-packed with all kinds of clothes, hats, shoes, and purses t
hat smelled vaguely like disinfectant. The racks were arranged by clothing type, and I was starting to think I was either going to be stuck with my cutoffs or something of the polyester variety, since that’s what they mostly had, when I actually managed to find one pair of jeans in exactly my size. And bonus, not only did they fit me, but they only had to be rolled at the hem one time.

  Plus, we’d killed nearly an hour and a half in the process.

  When the bowling lane we’d requested, the one farthest from the door and away from the bar and the check-in counter, finally came available, we traded our shoes for the well-worn rentals and picked our not-fancy-or-polished balls from the racks against the wall. I bent down and laced my shoes as I watched Simon try to explain to Natty the finer points of knocking pins down with a ten-pound ball.

  Her first approach was comical, and her release was less than impressive. She took three awkward steps and launched the ball as hard as she could, which was also entirely too late, resulting in a loud, and totally attention-grabbing, crash against the hardwoods.

  She definitely wasn’t a natural.

  Nervously I glanced around, but only a few disinterested gazes even drifted our way, and it was clear it wasn’t the first time someone had mishandled a bowling ball in this place.

  Her ball rolled listlessly toward the gutter, and as if she’d expected a strike her first go-round, Natty stomped her foot and muttered, “Darn it!” which was probably the equivalent of a swear, coming from Natty.

  “Really?” I scoffed, because how could she not have known that thing was headed to the gutter?

  She shrugged, and we both sat on our bench and watched as Simon took his turn. He was actually pretty good. A million times better than Natty, and he probably could’ve given some of the leaguers a run for their money.

  His first roll wasn’t a strike, but on his second, he bowled a split, sending one of his two remaining pins careening into the other and clearing the lane. Even if he’d done it by accident, he was taking full credit for the maneuver as he strolled back confidently, his chest all puffed up. “Time to see what you can do, Hollingsworth.”